Laharl's Search for Love
by PalletRed
Summary: A more mature Laharl opens up about his thoughts on love. Takes place long after the events of Disgaea 3.
1. Laharl's Search

For Etna this was turning out to be a really fun night. It never occurred to her how fun it would be to get Laharl and Flonne drunk.

So far the entertainment has been Flonne viciously assaulting Laharl with her lectures of love, but only these were a bit different from the usual thing.

"La-hic-l! Wvhy can't jOoo understan-hic luv?!" she slurred as the two demons silently watched her as they waited for her speech to run its course. As usual Laharl only stared at her with eyes full of contempt whereas Etna rather enjoyed this new side of Flonne and kept watching on grinning from ear to ear.

"LOVE IS UNIVERSAL! Everyone is capable of love! Even you Laharl!" she said as she stood up to regain some kind of focus only to wobble and fall back into her seat, and before Laharl could offer any kind of rebuttal she exclaimed, "And don't try to day demons don't feel love because your father fell in love with your mother didn't he? So don't give me any of that crap!"

"Pfft! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Etna couldn't control herself any longer after hearing the self proclaimed emissary of love curse.

"Etna! Why are you laughing? This is serious business...blegh...hic...uuuhhh...." she stammered as she slumped face down on the table.

"Hehehehe oh boy that was funny! Hey Flonne you okay?" Etna asked as she wiped the tears away from her eyes.

"....ZZZZzzz." she snored. It seems she had fallen asleep. The two demons watched her in silence as Flonne's snores started to increase in volume. "ZZZZZZZZZZZ!"

"Um...hey Prince why don't we take this on the roof? It was funny at first, but now I think her snoring is starting to make me sober."

Etna noticed as Laharl stood to his feet that his eyes shone with a deep red that she had only seen in his eyes when he was angry, which made Etna wonder if she might have accidentally stepped into a mind field. What if Laharl was one of those angry drunks? On top of that he might be short on an already short fuse with Flonne's drunken and unbounded lecture on love. As they made their way to the roof there was a heavy air about them that made Etna very uncomfortable. There was no way of knowing what was going through Laharl's head when under the influence.

The two demons sat in silence as Laharl continued to drink as his glowing red eyes became fixated on the moon, while Etna was thinking of some way out of this potentially dangerous situation.

"IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!!" exclaimed Laharl as he jumped to his feet.

Etna yelped and her tail went straight as an arrow in surprise.

"I HAVE NEVER HAD MY PENIS TOUCHED!!!" admitted the inebriated Overlord.

"...wh-...ha...haha...hahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!" she laughed in hysterics.

"WHAT?!?!? What the hell is that? HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" she continued. What came out of Laharl's mouth was something that she never expected to hear from him and simply left her so dumbfounded she was paralyzed with laughter. The head splitting tension from before had completely disappeared and was now replaced by the comedic absurdity of Laharl's outburst.

"Will you cut that out!? I'm trying to be serious here!" Laharl said with his face completely flushed and his eyes still shining like the red moon. Etna assumed that alcohol causes his eyes to shine as if he were in the middle of an intense moment of emotion, which is never something that Laharl would admit to openly.

"But how can I?" she giggle out, "There's no way I'm taking you seriously when you're drunk and you say something like that!"

Suddenly in a flash Laharl was engulfed in blue flames as he gave a stare of death to his impertinent vassal. At any other time this would have her on her toes and poised to take a death blow, but the absurdity of Laharl's earlier statement was just too much for Etna as she held her sides in a fit of laughter. Laharl could do nothing but watch as she laughed so much that it seemed that she was going to die if she were to keep laughing any longer.

"Are you done yet? I trying to have a serious conversation here!" complained the embarrassed Overlord as his antennae stood straight up in anger.

"Ok ok...hah hah hah..." she breathed as she started to calm down and use the spade of her tail to wipe the tears out of her eyes. "Phew! Okay let's try this again. I'm really curious to see where the rest of this is going if it starts like that! Which begs the questions what is it exactly you want to talk about?"

"Love."

"Love?"

"Love."

Once again silence wedged itself in between the two demons, but the only difference is that this one was incredibly awkward. The silence was so intense that Laharl could swear that he could hear Flonne's snoring all the way from across the castle.

"Lov-?"

"Look just hear me out okay?" interrupted Laharl.

"I'm not too sure that I want to..." she said hesitantly as she started to pour herself a tall glass of alcohol as she was sure that he was going to make her listen despite her answer. For some reason she felt that the only way that she was going to enjoy this is she was completely wasted, but she was only to get half a glass as Laharl snatched the bottle from her. Laharl was going to need all the motivation he could get to get whatever it was off his chest.

"It's all her fault. It's all that damn love freaks fault! If it wasn't for her I wouldn't be plagued with this notion called love." said Laharl as his gaze returned once again to the moon.

"Did you know Etna?" asked Laharl.

"Know that you're some kind of drunk? Yeah. Just don't ask me what kind because I'm not too sure..." said Etna.

"No you fool!" yelled Laharl. "What I'm trying to say is that I...I've always known. I've always known what love was. Thanks to that woman..."

Etna now had a grim look on her face as she knew very well to he was referring to. The one person that she was so jealous of, but could never bring herself to hate, Larharl's late mother.

"For so long I've hated all things associated with my mother that I things like compassion, love, and even my old man." he said somberly, "That love freak only reopened those feelings that I locked away, and now I...I just don't know what to do with myself."

"So what exactly has this got to do with you not being able to get...uh...touched?" inquired Etna.

"Fool! Are you still hung up on THAT? I only meant that I can't find love!" said Laharl.

By looking at her face Laharl could tell that what he just said only served to confuse her even more.

"Sigh...what I'm saying is that for these past couple centuries I've been looking for someone that I could fall in love with." admitted Laharl.

Never in a million years did Etna think that her stubborn and ignorant boss would reveal such a motive to anyone, much less her. If Etna was drunk before she wasn't now. Caught completely off guard she finally began to notice that she was alone with a emotionally defenseless Laharl. The gravity of the situation was like being in the center of a storm. There were so few stimulus to take in she felt as if that the nearest person was a thousand miles away. She could feel feel the night time wind blow from Laharl direction,she could smell the scent of alcohol, and she saw his glowing red eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.

"It means exactly what I said." he snapped.

"Okay now I really confused. For the past half-millennium of denying love or any sort of emotion that would indicate that you even have a heart was just a show or what?" asked the ever puzzled demon girl.

For a moment Laharl remained silent staring a hole into the roof he stood on as he mulled over her question. It was one thing to express his feelings through actions and words, but it was always conveying the reasons for his feelings is what troubled him.

Why did he care about love? Why did he even start thinking about love? Was is all Flonne's fault or was it something else?

"Oh man, you have know idea how pathetic you look right now. Some Overlord you turned out to be...I don't remember the King ever acting this way..." Etna pointed out.

"...I don't want to talk about that old fool." spat Laharl, "And another thing you can't tell me that you've never seen my old man depressed. He was plenty pathetic when she..."

Laharl stopped himself before he realized that he stepped into a topic that he rarely ever brought up. His parents.

"Oh, I like where this is going now. You've rarely mention either of you're parents, but now you're talking about the both of them." she said.

"Well there's not much to say...I always hated them always imposing their own view of what an Overlord should be. There's no room for love or compassion when you're the Overlord as this path that I'm on is strewn with the corpses of those would rise against me. Falling in love is only a weakness. That's what happened to my old man."

"What the heck are talking about?" she asked.

"I mean when the old fool married my mother he became weak. She was his weakness and coincidently she was also mine with her talk of love and kindness." he said

"And yet isn't it this same love and kindness that you said you've been looking for all this time?" she raised the point.

"...yeah." he chuckled as a very solemn look dawned upon his face.

This conversation seemed to be filled with holes and contradictions, which made Etna wonder if this was actually Laharl drunk out of his mind or just plain alcohol and this was just in his head. Or maybe it was her. Maybe it was her that was drunk out of her mind and all of this was some kind of bad trip.

"Hey!" he walked toward her trying to bring her back from her space out. "You listening? Cause I'm trying to talk to you here!"

"I'm better than you if that's what you're asking." she said as made room for him to sit down next to her and found herself staring into his glowing eyes again, only this time something was different. They're eyes were locked together and for some reason they did not try to break the connection.

"Let's stay together." said Laharl.

While Etna was certainly confused about what he just said she didn't even bother to ask what the heck he meant as she had been doing that the entire night. Instead, she decided to wear that look she gave a teacher whenever they decided to ask her a question back at the Evil Academy, the look that said, "What in the world are you talking about?" It took an inebriated Laharl a good 45 seconds to realize what he just said didn't make any real sense to Etna or even himself.

"Uh...what I mean is that I want us to stick together. I said this before and after this I won't say it again so pay attention for once." he said as he placed his hand on her shoulder closest to him, "A true demon is always full of ambition, and aims for the top. As king, I'll need a right-hand demon like you under my command."

Laharl's hand felt surprisingly warm to Etna. She placed a hand over his and said,

"Ambition huh? Should an the greatest of all Overlords have an ambition for love I wonder?" brushing his hand off of her.

"Tch, if everyone else can have love why can't an Overlord?" asked Laharl.

"I dunno. Why can't they? The king did it." Etna pointed out.

"Ha! If only I could have it so easy." he said.

"What do you mean by easy?" she asked.

"I'm not my old man. I'm not so lucky as he was. I can't simply see a woman and instantly fall in love with her although that would make things much easier." he said like he was starting to wind up for a big speech.

"It would just great if the perfect woman for me would just fall from the sky into my arms, and just make me feel good just to be alive. Then I begin to wonder, 'Why do I need someone else to make me want to feel alive?' I am the Overlord. Things can't possibly get any better for myself in terms of wealth and power, but every time I think that I know that there is a void inside me that only someone else can fill. I guess part of me just wants to be better than my old man on all levels, but another part of me is just plain lonely. The truth of it is I can't tell what it is because every time I look for love I freeze. I realized that I have no people skills whatsoever...probably because after she died I naturally shut people out. Everyday, I'm trying little by little to change myself to be able to love people. Until then, will you stand by me?"

Etna's answer was immediate due to her loyalty to the former king and her affinity for the young Overlord.

"Of course I will Prince. I'll stay by you right up until I drive a knife right through that precious, feeling heart of yours 3." she mewed as she drew and an 'X' right over where his heart would be.

"Hmph, very good then." he said closing the topic.

A chilly gust of wind suddenly blew over the two causing Etna to shiver.

"Wha-? When did hell freeze over?" she asked.

In response Laharl's ghostly scarf wrapped the two of them up like a blanket giving them some warmth. It was rare act of kindness, but it was his way of saying thanks without actually saying it for listening to him.

The two young demons were silent the rest of the night, and eventually drifted into sleep.

Morning came...

"LAHARL!!! ETNA!!! WHERE ARE YOU?!?" yelled Flonne full of energy.

The two awoke and cringed as the sun beat down on their eyes.

"Why is the sun so damn bright?" complained Etna

Laharl could only grunt in response as the two mustered up the strength and coordination to go back to their rooms.

"Oh there you two are!" said Flonne brightly.

Their heads pounded at the sound of Flonne's voice, and neither could muster up a coherent phrase to answer her.

"Uh hey guys what's wrong? You two look terrible! How much did you two drink last night?" she asked.

Laharl and Etna could do nothing but walk like zombies to their rooms, and slamming their doors shut behind them leaving a confused Flonne in the middle of the castle. As the two of them laid down in their own beds they looked up at their ceilings and thought to themselves,

"What the hell did I do last night?"


	2. Author's Notes

I was in the middle of writing a story for a more mature Disgaea, but during that process I was inspired to write about "love" instead.

At some point in everybody's life they will encounter love in some way shape of form, and I'm not talking about that parental/familial love. I'm talking about romance. While I don't consider this particular work of fiction a romance in certainly deals with the concept of it, to be more accurate I would categorize it as a coming of age fiction.

My intent was to take this socially awkward and immature child and imagine what he would grow up to be like. Does he stay the same? Does he revert back to shutting everyone out of his heart? Or does he become a lady killer?

In this fic he has aged to the point where he begins to have thoughts of a lifetime companion who makes him feel like everyone should be jealous that they aren't him. A lot of gamers who have played the Disgaea series will find it hard to imagine that the spoiled, self-centered Prince would every grow up, but change is inevitable. In the span of one game, Laharl went from a power hungry brat to a power hungry, compassionate brat. Yes I know it seems like nothing, but it is a huge leap for someone who lived more than a millennium shutting any feelings like love or kindness.

Though as a character he wasn't too hard to figure out. I myself was very socially awkward when I was young and I know how hard it is to get out of your comfort zone and your close circle of friends. The first step in the process was to get Laharl to open up to someone close. At first I thought Flonne was a good choice, but opening up to Flonne on the subject of love would feel like he "lost" to her due to the fact that he had been denying love for so long. So through process of elimination the only one left to open up to was Etna.

Now opening up to Etna, while easier than opening up to Flonne, is still a very hard thing to do when you're Laharl. Thank God for alcohol. In all honesty alcohol is the only thing that's plausible and familiar enough with _ to have Laharl open up to Etna.

By far the hardest part about writing this was trying to get a balance of humor, logic, and keeping the Disgaea gang in character. Keeping them in character is very hard as I have to use my own logic and analysis of these characters to simulate how they would act with each other. Throughout, without a shred of doubt I can say that whether or not they're willing to admit it Laharl and Etna are very close to each other. Whatever they say or do to each other is not awkward in the least for them, which is a very a relationship that's hard to come by in real life.

Now here's where things get iffy. The closeness between Laharl and Etna is very similar to that of romance, BUT it is not romance...well at this point anyway. One thing about me is that I will almost never break canon. If it seems out of character I will not write it. NEVER at any point does Laharl have feelings towards a woman in the romantic sense, and I don't mean to direct that sense at Etna just because the two have some history together.

In the end, this is just another one of my explorations of the characters while at the same time trying to share my own ideas of love through these characters. I hope you enjoyed this read!

NOTE: I DON'T NEED TO HEAR ABOUT SHIPPING. For example, "LaharlxFlonne=greatness n00b!" or "Ew LaharlxEtna is disturbing"

I never made Laharl and Etna a couple, and if you read close enough you'll see that.


End file.
